The Big, The Bad, The Ugly

The Monster Suv, Once A Symbol Of Rugged Individualism, Is Becoming Vehicle Non Grata.

February 02, 2003|By Bill Heald

You bought your SUV, thinking it would give you room for the kids, the dog and the carpool. You could see above traffic, and with terror lurking under every manhole cover, its massive bulk and off-road resume made you feel safe. But now, you find your ridestyle choice under attack. There are ad campaigns linking your SUV to terrorism, and a government safety czar is calling them a road threat. Even the auto industry is starting to back away from them, as reported last week in The Wall Street Journal. You and your symbol of American rugged individualism are now being cast as wasteful, dangerous thugs. How is this possible? No one targeted you when you drove the Malibu wagon.

Because of the resources they consume, pollution they excrete and carnage they create in collisions, SUVs have more impact on the world around them than cars. And this impact is growing, for here in Connecticut SUV registrations increased nearly five-fold from 1987 to 1997 alone. Nationally, 20 million are now on the road.

While some folks have a legitimate need for a big SUV, the fact is most are driven by city dwellers who tow no trailers nor venture cross country to tend horses or hunt orcs. Thanks to the fuel they consume, we're rolling back the clock to the '70s when the family's LTD got 13 mpg in town and our dependence on Mideast oil was questioned. Deja vu, anyone?

While more efficient car-based SUVs are entering the marketplace, the truck-style variants are getting more massive. The new Hummer H2 is a true paramilitary porker, and a Ford Excursion can weigh nearly four tons. These behemoths are well-suited to conquering ant hills and towing yachts up Kilimanjaro, yet they have enormous appetites and kill when they hit smaller automobiles. As a class, SUVs have longer braking distances, less stable emergency handling and much higher rollover rates than passenger cars.

Even the business-loving Bush administration has been critical. It is proposing the first increase in fuel economy targets in SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans since 1996. And the nation's top highway safety regulator Jeffrey W. Runge recently argued that SUV rollovers and their easy destruction of passenger cars are of increasing concern to his agency. ``These two issues,'' he said, ``must be addressed because they account for a large and growing share of the safety problem.''

Automakers are fighting back with their own rhetoric, as they rev up for the Presidents' Day sales this month and peddle product in a sputtering economy. Sadly, truck-based SUVs are comparatively cheap to build and therefore highly profitable, so most manufacturers have opted to make the interiors quieter and more luxurious instead of fixing the real problems.

What's a person who wants to buy responsibly supposed to drive, then? Minivans offer a safer, more efficient alternative and more room than most SUVs. Safer, car-based SUV models are being produced (like Honda's new Pilot and Volvo's XC90), and offer generous room, all-road capability, decent gas mileage and better crash compatibility with cars. Ford even plans a gas/electric hybrid version of its Escape SUV in '04, and GM plans to build one of its Saturn VUE in '05, to up the efficiency ante.

But for now, we must deal with the looming specter of big SUVs as many Americans blow off social responsibility and common sense and opt for a rolling living room like the Cadillac Escalade. The leather may be soft and the view commanding, but the numbers tell a rather unsettling story.

VISIBILITY

Pedestrians won't have trouble seeing your big SUV. But you may well have trouble seeing them, especially if they happen to be small and walking behind you. Nationwide, in 2002 more than 50 children were killed by being backed over by a vehicle. This figure is climbing as more of these big vehicles hit the road, for the commanding view of the world out front is countered by a huge blind spot directly behind the vehicle.

FUEL CONSUMPTION

As SUVs get more massive they need bigger, more powerful engines for decent performance. They therefore get thirstier. The choice to use these vehicles instead of conventional sedans, station wagons and even minivans is questionable during a time when our dependency on petroleum is adversely influencing everything from foreign policy to national defense.